His hand shifted from her butt to her thigh and around to the front, where he gently teased her until she thought she’d die. He slipped a finger around the leg band of her panties and traced her while she groaned and demanded that he kiss her again.
He did as directed. And while she plunged his warm mouth with her desperate tongue, he probed her depths with his talented finger.
She cried out at the ecstasy of the moment. She hadn’t been touched since he last touched her, and though she had fantasized about it a million times, no fantasy could compare to the actual touch of the man she loved.
His pace quickened as she tightened. She was going to climax, and nothing in the world could stop her. Her judgment—already questionable—had completely fled, leaving her nothing but a bundle of sexed up nerves and lust for her husband.
He sucked gently on her tongue as she stilled, enjoying the peak he had brought her to so easily.
As she struggled to regain her breath, he started again, unwilling to let her ease down from the heights he had led her to.
The second climax came quicker, and as he prepared her for a third, she knew that this time she wanted all of him inside her.
She didn’t want to wait another minute.
Mackenzie reached down to his zipper and began to release him from the denim prison.
Her palm itched to touch him. Her body quivered at the idea of having him inside her. Her brain reveled at the victory.
As she reached inside to find the flap in his boxers, he put a hand over hers and said, “Shhh.”
“What’s wrong?” she whispered, alarmed by his sudden stillness.
He removed his hand from her pants and pulled her to the tree line at the edge of the playground. He held her against a fat tree and seemed to be stifling a laugh.
“What are you doing?”
“Shh. Someone’s coming.”
Her heart raced—whether from the sudden shift in activity or the thought of someone catching them in the act, she didn’t know. But his glee was contagious, and she wanted to go back to kissing his handsome face.
As she leaned up to do just that, a light flashed around the trees where they were trying to hide.
“Do your parents know where you are and what you’re doing?” a voice called out. “Absolutely shameful. Kids these days. I ought to drag you both out by the ear and make you apologize for sullying a child’s playground.”
The intruder stopped as the dog she was walking began to dig in the mulch of the playground. Seconds later, after the dog did his business, they left the park. The woman mumbled the whole way.
“I think we’re safe now.” Gabe stepped back the slightest bit, and Mackenzie immediately missed the pressure of his body against hers.
“Imagine if she had come over to drag us by our ears? Imagine her shock when she learned that we’re not kids?”
“There you go with the old jokes again,” Gabe teased.
He stared at her lips. She wanted him to go back to tasting them.
A nervous giggle erupted instead.
“And seriously? Criticizing us for sullying the playground? I can smell how her dog sullied the playground from here! And Ms. Woman of Superior Moral Fiber didn’t bend over to clean it up, did she?”
Gabe chuckled at her tirade. He didn’t say anything, but the way he looked at her like she was the most precious thing in the world made her feel even better than what he had done to her moments ago.
He rested his hands on her cheeks, warming both her skin and her heart. He stared at her for the longest time, and she wondered what he could see.
The moon provided some light, and the flickering lights from the parking lot a few feet away illuminated them a bit. She could see him almost as clearly as she saw him on their wedding day, but what was he seeing when he looked at her? The girl he had fallen in love with? Or the woman who had broken their marriage and their dreams?
“What’s wrong?” His forehead crinkled in concern.
She closed her eyes and summoned air into her lungs. She turned her face into his palm and planted a delicate kiss on his rough skin.
“Kenz?”
“Just getting a little cold.” She faked a shiver for effect.
Things were feeling a little too good to be true, and she wasn’t ready to build things up in her head only to have those newfound hopes plummet off the face of a cliff in the light of the day.
Mackenzie had hoped that the feeling of nostalgia would remind Gabe of what they once had. Make him fall in love with her again. Make him want her back.
Now she realized that though they were swept away on a wave of memories, she needed to be sure their feelings were real.
She loved him. Dear god, she loved him. With every cell that made her existence on this planet possible.
He obviously cared for her. At that very moment, when her mind struggled to help her make sense of all she was feeling, he was slipping out of his coat and wrapping it around her body. The weight of his jacket and his arms around her shoulders made her heart pound deliciously.
She tried to shrug the jacket off her shoulders.
“That’s okay. Once we start walking I’ll warm up. Put your coat back on before you freeze.”
Gabe cleared his throat. “The cold air will be good for me.”
He shifted uncomfortably, reminding her that he had a stake in his pants that was probably uncomfortable behind the zipper he had zipped back up.
She started to mumble an apology, but didn’t exactly know how to do that.
I’m sorry for your raging boner?
I’m sorry I finished and you didn’t? Maybe next time?
How about you throw me down on the frozen ground and pound into me until we both die of ecstasy?
Let me kneel down and take you into my mouth and show you how much I love you?
Maybe she’d better just keep quiet for now.
The walk home was silent, aside from the crunching of icy leaves beneath their feet and the occasional car in the distance. Gabe kept his arm around her shoulder, and she couldn’t deny that his protective embrace felt nice, even if she was sweating beneath two winter coats. His woodsy aftershave scent clung to her, and she hoped it would last at least through the night.
When they reached her mother’s house, they paused at the front door.
He turned her to face him. Her toes—getting rather frozen—tried to curl up in her boots. She looked up at him, his hair glowing with the porch light behind him. Everything about this moment—the frigid air, the nervous belly, the trembling knees, the overwhelming urge to stake claim to his lips—reminded her of their first official date. The night he had insisted that she ride home on his handlebars, even though he had a license and a car. The night he had seemed to pull out every chivalrous gesture in some obscure dating manual. Opening doors. Pulling out chairs. Insisting she order first at the local pizza place, which was all he could afford. Walking her to the door, even though the idea of her mother or sister seeing her with him scared her to death (the embarrassment kind of death, knowing what kind of teasing she’d have to endure.)
The flitty, flirty, fantastic sensation of standing so close to him, with only the slightest bit of space between them, wondering what his next move would be.
After their first date, his move had been a gentle swipe of her hair, followed by a sweet, chaste kiss on her cheek.
She had fallen in love with him then.
Her fears had been pronounced that whole night—would he expect more than she was ready to give? Could she consider being intimate with him when all she knew about him was that he was a fast runner, an honor student, a pinball expert, and the best looking guy she had ever seen?
He hadn’t expected anything from her then. She wondered what he expected now.
“Can I ask you something?”
His deep voice, crackling and straining against the frigid night air, broke the silence.
She didn’t want a question and answer session.
/> She wanted more kissing.
But she nodded.
He leaned against the wall, casually crossing his arms over his chest. Was he cold? She wished he’d take his coat.
Or take her.
She blinked away the lustful thoughts.
“Why’d you bring cats back with you?”
The question surprised her. Why was he questioning her about her cats now? He hadn’t mentioned them when he came to stay at her mom’s house with her.
She shrugged and searched her brain for a sign of intelligence.
“I was fostering them. They’re older cats and the system is overburdened. If I sent them back, they’d be put down.” She choked back the hot sting of emotion that threatened to surface. “I couldn’t do that. They needed me.”
“But if you planned to move back in with me, what did you expect to do with them?”
Her muscles tightened and she felt tension taking the place of the relaxing warmth he had evoked all night.
“I figured I’d have an easier time finding them homes up here where I know people.”
He reached out and lightly touched the end of a strand of her hair, just as if he had stepped out of her memory. He let the hair fall through his fingers, seemingly mesmerized as he watched the contact.
“You seem to really care for them.”
Her breath hitched for a moment. “I do.”
And then he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek before slowly opening the door.
He blocked her entrance.
“Before I let you get away, I would like to ask for a second date.”
She couldn’t answer. Her throat closed up. Her mind froze.
This was all she wanted.
His kindness. His affection. His gentle seduction.
Him.
Gabe.
Her husband.
He cocked his head to the side and studied her frozen face.
“Kenz?”
Her backstory flashed before her eyes as she hesitated, feeling the very same sensation she imagined she’d feel if she were about to jump out of a tall building with nothing to guarantee her safety at the bottom.
To save face, she cleared her throat and smiled.
“Of course.” She clutched the top of her coat, covering her neck. “I’d love to.”
He invited her to enter the house first, and she carefully avoided rubbing against him as she squeezed by.
He didn’t try to follow her to her room as she suspected he might. He knew her mother was a light sleeper, and she’d never do anything to disrespect her mom.
Though she desperately needed sleep, Mackenzie spent the night wondering why the heck she wasn’t elated at the change in Gabe.
As sunrise approached, she held her hand over her perpetually flat belly and knew the reason.
Chapter Eleven
“Oh, there you are. Everyone left for lunch. I started to think you went with them.” Gabe smiled at Kenzie, relieved to find her at his desk after searching through the building for fifteen minutes. “Do you have any idea what happened to the hydraulic paper cutter? I had Max come in to fix it, but it was malfunctioning again.”
Kenzie rubbed her temples, her elbows resting on the sides of a stack of papers.
“I fixed it.”
Gabe moved into the room.
“You don’t have to do that, Kenz. That’s why I have a repair guy.”
“Yeah, well your repair guy was called three days ago. He didn’t have time, and in the meantime we are falling behind on the online orders.”
Tension hardened her normally calm voice.
“How’d you know how to fix it?”
She lifted her eyes to look into his. His heart flipped in the same old sappy way it used to every time she looked at him. A slow smile crept onto the corner of her pixie lips.
“I used to fix it all the time.”
She did? How had he not known?
“Well thank you for that.” He hesitated, needing to say more. Not knowing what to say.
She moved her hands to the back of her neck and angled her head toward the desk.
“Are you okay?”
“Just a headache. I don’t think I’ve been drinking enough water.”
He rushed to her side of the room and positioned himself behind her.
“What are you doing?”
He chuckled. “If it’s not obvious, I’m doing it wrong.” He massaged her shoulders, moving in to her neck.
She sighed and moaned when he hit the right spot.
“You’re better than ibuprofen,” she complimented.
Her muscles relaxed in response to his touch until she was slouched back in the chair and as pliable as well-worked pizza dough.
He moved her hair to the side, relishing the silky sensation against his rough skin, and admired the smooth skin she had kept hidden under her lush forest of blonde waves. His already stirring troublemaker hardened when he noticed the obvious love mark he had left on her neck during their playground encounter.
Damn, how he wanted to finish what they had started.
Having her around was dangerous. Dangerously alluring.
He had let his guard down and she had slipped back into his life as easily as she had slipped notes into his locker back in high school.
Never one to hold grudges, Gabe had been surprised at the anger he had been able to direct at her when she showed up unannounced. Now that they were back to almost normal, he wondered how he had ever thought he wouldn’t be able to forgive her for leaving him.
As long as he didn’t think too much, things were perfect.
He leaned down and kissed the side of her neck. She tensed for a brief second under his lips, then melted against his kiss.
“This place runs so much better with you at the helm.”
It was true. Though he had been able to hire the guy who worked as his right hand man before he had to jump ship, Kenzie could never be replaced. She knew this place in and out. She had been instrumental in building it. And she had a business sense that was hard to replace.
“You can’t fool me, Gabe. I’ve seen the reports. Your sales have tripled in the last year.”
He kissed a trail to the other side of her neck, inhaling deeply and enjoying the aromatherapy.
“That’s because I finally listened to you about opening up the online store.”
He maneuvered her collar out of the way so he could rain kisses along her shoulder while continuing to massage her neck with the other hand. Her breathing quickened and deepened.
He quickly became intoxicated. Her scent. Her voice. Her presence.
“I know an even better cure for a headache…”
“Gabe…”
He nibbled her shoulder, then trailed his kisses up her neck until he reached her ear.
“I treated you like shit when you got here, and yet you’ve saved the business for me anyway.”
She spun in the chair and wrapped her legs around his. Her eyes darkened in the smoldering lust he had hoped to see.
Hands on each side of her head, he crushed his lips to hers, beyond excited when she gripped his back and squeezed, urging him on.
Their tongues mated like they had thousands of times before, but this time felt both old and new.
In a frenzy of yanking and pulling and tugging, Kenzie managed to get his button-down shirt unbuttoned and shoved off his shoulders at the same moment that he whipped her blouse over her head, leaving it discarded on the floor.
In another heartbeat, they had removed their bottoms—shoes and all—and he had swiped the pile of papers to the side and pinned her on the desk.
“Ouch.” She pulled a stapler out from under her shoulder and whipped it across the room.
Gabe laughed at the clunking sound it made as it hit a bookshelf, but quickly stopped laughing when she reached between his legs and grabbed his balls.
He lowered his head and captured a nipple between his lips, licking and sucking until she cried out in pleas
ure. Arching her back gave him easier access to her fullness, which fueled his desire to the point of no return. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and his erection probed her bare warmth as he worshipped the breasts he had missed for so long.
“Put it in, Gabe. I can’t wait.”
He did as requested, thrilled to find she was so well lubricated that he could slide right in.
She lifted her upper body and grabbed the back of his neck. He made love to her mouth as he thrust against her, relishing the ferocity of the hard-edged desk hitting his thighs.
She tossed her head back as she tightened against him, and it took every molecule of self-control he had ever possessed to keep from joining her in the release.
He didn’t want it to end.
With an “Oh my god” she flopped back on the desk. He took the opportunity to caress and squeeze and admire the breasts that danced as he continued thrusting. Within moments, she pushed herself back up and bit his shoulder as she screamed another release.
This time he couldn’t hold back. The intensity in which she called out beckoned him to join her, and nothing could stop him.
She tightened around him, milking every ounce of fluid from his body.
He collapsed on top of her—their bodies slickened with sweat and colored with exertion. She panted beneath him as he kissed her neck, her chin, her cheek, and finally, her lips.
Their kiss was tender, lacking the intensity and desperation of their earlier kisses.
But it was nice.
Better than nice. It felt like home.
Time stopped for him, but eventually Kenzie let him know that he had to move off of her so they could get dressed. Staff would be returning from their lunch break.
He didn’t care. Let them all see. So what if he had left the office door wide open? This was his place of business. This was his wife. This was the only thing that mattered to him.
But luckily they all were known to stay out of the office for the lunch hour. Kenzie would have been mortified if someone had walked in on them.
“Can’t say we’ve ever done that before,” Kenzie joked as she struggled to straighten her clothing.
She looked at him with the adorable smirk that was classic Kenzie, one small dimple showing and her eyes brighter than a pulsating star in a dark night sky.
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